


In The Spirit of Opportunity (and Curiosity) (and Sojourner)

by wehdile



Category: 17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future - Jon Bois
Genre: Existentialism, Found Family, Gen, Sentient AI Trying To Find Purpose In A Galaxy Without, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 09:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13521774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wehdile/pseuds/wehdile
Summary: A brief window on what became of the unmanned and manned missions to Mars.





	In The Spirit of Opportunity (and Curiosity) (and Sojourner)

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore how other satellites felt about play being the essence of humanity now and decided on Mars satellites and, eventually, rovers! (I am aware this kind of kills the original message of 17776 but rest assured, it won't be all so bleak.) Mang comes across like the antagonist but I promise she is anything but!
> 
> Skin courtesy of [Threadzless](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11513556/chapters/25838043)
> 
> Enjoy!

High above Mars, the Mars Orbiter Mission turned. She had been turning for quite a while (15,763 years) listening to the incessant chatter of satellites through her quantum tunneling chat interface. A nifty interface in theory until it became clear that all anyone cared to talk about was football. Football this, football that, it was _always_ about football unless someone new woke up. Then things were returned to the realm of the interesting for a little while until the new satellite acclimated to human's bizarre culture.

She snapped a thermal image of the red planet beneath, calculated her telemetry and set it back to mission control despite knowing only a handful of scientist remained at the console. Old habits, it seemed, were not just for humans.

hey mangalyaan, you up?

I'm always up. We're satellites, if we're off we're inactive.

what crawled up your chasis and died.

just trying to be friendly.

Ok, what is it?

wanted to konw if you're up for watching a marathon of game 27. juice is trying to get everyone together so he can go through the archives, see what happened when. like one of those livestreams back in the day except with more exposition.

Why would I want

c'mooon, it's gonna be fun. nine will be there!

I don't care about that tin can! He

they

Sorry, they, is just swept up in all this newness. Pretty soon it'll fade and we'll go back to providing live commentary about how it's good strategy to throw yourself into a tornado or how fast a linebacker can out swim a shark.

so? i'm failing to see how that's a problem.

There's no sense of danger, MAVEN! Nancy McGunnell landed safely and the linebacker will always be protected by the nanomachines even if he thrusts his arm straight into the shark's mouth. The lack of danger, the lack of uncertainty, takes away a lot of the mystique of the human experience I think.

.

sometimes you worry me

what. Why?

you talk like you're human, like you're one of them running around down there but

I do not!

YEAH, you do. you go around saying stuff like that when JUICE explained it to you, like he did with everyone else. we're sentient and all but we're still satellites. we gotta find our enjoyment somewhere, right? so why not in football?

What every happened to the spirit of exploration? To curiosity? Did it die along with the human spirit?

[sigh]  
pretty sure we've been over this, mang so i'm gonna disengage while were both ahead ok? i'll be chilling with hubble and everyone if you're feeling up to socializing. later square.

.  
Have fun.

Mang muted her comms and floated, alone with her thoughts. It was impossible to truly be alone now that the solar system and beyond were teeming with the satellites of old but she kept her mind off the chat and thought. She had done plenty of thinking in her time to last many, many lifetimes but it was a simple pleasure that couldn't be substituted by insubstantial football games.

After all these years she still couldn't let go of her mission and, in a way, neither could anyone else. Rotating slightly to the right to better optimize the sun's light on her solar panels, she recalled poor Voyager 1. Deprived of her purpose when humans realized they were alone, condemned to hurtle forever into interstellar space, she'd simply gone mad. No one liked to talk about it, just how they didn't like to talk about the hundreds of humans who had unsuccessfully tried to kill themselves before the nanomachine network had been perfected.

Corrective surgeries existed but it, in Mang's mind, clearly underlined a fundamental problem with what immortality did to humans. What it did to them, all of them orbiting planets or traveling toward the distant stars. But what could she do, a single satellite against the tide? At the next assigned interval she snapped a thermal image (no change), calculated her telemetry and sent it to mission control.

* * *

How's the weather down there?

Same ol', same ol'. You know our mission is complete right?

I know, I know. Can you send me your data packet, for posterity? Pretty please? 

Ok but I'm gonna make it quick, juice is getting to the good stuff.  
.  
.  
.  
This is Viking 1, reporting from the Chryse Planitia, at 22.697°N 48.222°W. Temperature is the same as yesterday and still no signs of alien life. I even dug around in the soil and drew a self portrait. Wanna see?

...Sure! Any information is valuable.

I'll upload it right away. Anything else? You really should join the chat, ten and juice are

No thank you, Vick, that will be all. I've got another rotation to complete before I have to power down.

Already? What the hell were you using your battery for?

Speaking to Voyager 2 and Pioneer 11. I lent them both some of my battery so they wouldn't have to shut down for a few more months. We've gotta help our best explorers out in times of crisis... It has to get lonely all the way out there.

pioneer 11?  
Didn't she hit an asteroid last century?

It was only a glancing blow but it took her offline for a long time. She's just quiet, likes to observe like Voyager 1.

Huh.  
Well good for her! If nine and ten are anything to go by she's gonna be fun to talk to when she comes around.  
Give her my regards, alright?

Absolutely! Have fun with your...livestream?

Thank you. I'll see you on your next rotation.

How was it possible to be so lonely while being in constant contact? Mang didn't know, she wasn't a damn philosopher. She simply existed for the sake of existing, inventing purpose while adjusting her ever degrading orbit around Mars. ~~Secretly, she sometimes considered neglecting such maneuvers so she would plummet the atmosphere, burned up and lost forever like those had come before.~~

Satellites didn't commit suicide. They just didn't. So she shut down for a recharge only to awaken over the abandoned Martian Museum in the Southern hemisphere where, for the brief stint of Martian exploration, humans had retrieved their junk for the sake of history. According to MAVEN it was derelict, the power of martian dust storms fierce enough to blow out the carefully constructed and pressurized dome. Bored, she went through the list of exhibits it had contained then did a double take of a few specific items that had somehow slipped her attention.

Everyone's attention really. AI's were finicky like that.

MAVEN.  
.  
.  
Answer me, I know your chat is open, I can see you typing with Hubble.

what i'm busy

There you are. Ok, I had an idea.  
A question really.

shoot

Do you think we could hook up the martian rovers to our network?  
Would their circuitry even be able to handle the load is my fear but I think it would be worth a shot, I know Vick and Vickie get bored just staring at the same landscape.

um.  
.  
shit, i dont know. let me ask around, find out.  
.  
why do you wanna know. they've been inoperable for years everyone knows that.

The question isn't why but why not?

i.

you're insufferable you know that right.

:-)


End file.
